Adam Marquardt
Today, more businesses are delving into content marketing. Internet marketing experts are stressing the importance of a content marketing strategy and how it can benefit businesses. Even Google has been advocating for great content that caters to user needs time and again. But what exactly is content marketing and does your business need it?
Let’s define content marketing.
Content marketing is a strategic inbound marketing technique that enables businesses to reach laser targeted audiences through delivery of various forms of relevant, educative and compelling messages. The message can be delivered as blog posts, articles, eBooks, whitepapers, podcasts, video, etc.
Does your company need content marketing?
The quick answer? Absolutely.
Content provides a leeway for brands to engage their prospects through educative, informative and entertaining messages. Successful websites are driven by quality content that generates quality visitors and leads. Having a content strategy that will address the needs of your target market will make your website grow. And in turn, make your social media presence grow, and increase sales and leads.
One thing should be clear from the onset; business is all about the customer. Your content should be helpful to your prospective customers and tailored to address their needs based on where they are in the sales funnel.
All businesses need content. The type of content and the delivery method should be in line with the behavior of your target market. Here are three reasons why you business needs consistent content:
1. Content helps in market research
Content marketing is a key business growth driver and thus essential for any business. In a perfect market, there is a consumer who has a problem and is willing to pay for a solution, and there is a seller that can offer the solution.
This market rule also applies online. Businesses have to fulfill the needs of desperate consumers who can pay for solutions. Consistent content helps you to identify your ideal customers, their needs, and their pain points.
Success in business depends on identifying a market that is interested in your solution. Market research can help determine which products to offer and the marketing mix to adopt for higher ROI. Using different content, you can address your market’s pain, struggles or needs and offer a relevant solution that is better than what is available in the market. Help ease your customer's pain just enough on their own, to where they need you to completely rid of their problem.
2. Increase brand awareness and authority in your industry
People buy from brands they trust. Providing content helps to increase brand awareness and establish trust over time. Sharing quality content that resonates well with your audience will position your website as the go-to place for matters in your industry.
Your content should be compelling and educative such that your audience will want to share it across various channels. Providing quality content will not only build a loyal audience, but also reduce conversion friction.
3. Content marketing provides a better ROI than traditional marketing
Producing consistent content is an important inbound marketing strategy that is more cost effective and efficient than traditional marketing such as print or TV ads. According to Hubspot’s State of Internet Marketing 2102 report, inbound marketing is 61 percent cheaper than outbound marketing.
Proper planning and execution is crucial to the success of any content marketing plan. You have to identify your company voice, subjects to cover, line of thought, frequency of producing content, engagement rules and promotions. Your content should be optimized to rank well for search engines to generate natural traffic and gather quality backlinks.
You can use content to drive traffic to your website and generate quality leads. Researching on the search behavior of your target market helps to identify the keywords to target and type of content to produce that will improve your bottom line.
How Does Content Fit in Your Online Marketing?
Content marketing can be integrated with other strategies to improve your inbound marketing campaign. For instance, social media and search marketing compliment content marketing and can be easily integrated to reach prospects. A well-laid out content marketing strategy that focuses on producing quality information will help you achieve your revenue objectives.
